


the 7-Eleven off I-40

by scythian_andromache



Series: shit, let's road-trip [1]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Arguments, Don't copy to another site, Families of Choice, Found Family, Gen, Slice of Life, aggressivelyeuropean!booker, cute!nile, gas stations, grunge!nicky, implied road trip
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:35:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25744420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scythian_andromache/pseuds/scythian_andromache
Summary: Drew has worked at the 7-Eleven off I-40 for three years, and he's seen some weird stuff in his time. But this group might just take the cake: rag-tag, bloody, and arguing in several different languages.Or: the Old Guard takes a road trip and makes a 2 a.m. stop at a 7-Eleven, much to the dismay of one poor, overworked cashier.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache & Booker | Sebastien & Nile Freeman & Joe | Yusuf & Nicky | Nicolò, Andy | Andromache & Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Joe | Yusuf al-Kaysani & Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: shit, let's road-trip [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1871005
Comments: 27
Kudos: 282





	the 7-Eleven off I-40

**Author's Note:**

> no beta we die like immortals  
> (and pop right back up to make more mistakes)  
> *  
> I think this has already been done before, but I saw the "late night 7-Eleven" prompt on tumblr and had to do my take on it :)  
> *  
> translations in end notes

Drew has worked at the 7-Eleven off I-40 for three years, and two of those he’s spent on the night shift. It’s a shit job, honestly, but it’s what he’s got to pay the bills while he works at getting his GED (long story) and takes care of his baby brother (even longer story).

He’s seen some _weird_ shit in his time; kids high off a late-night adventure, actual addicts shaking as they bring snacks up to the register, people so drunk they couldn’t walk straight, someone dressed up in a full-on ball gown and feather boa, you name it. He’s been held at gunpoint twice for the contents of the register, and has been cussed out more times than he can count.

So when, at six minutes past two in the morning, a guy that looks like he could be straight out of an action movie—and probably the villain, because he’s vaguely good-looking in a European way—waltzes in with another pissed-off looking guy dressed like a bum, hoodie pulled over his face and grunge jeans and what’s clearly a _gun_ in his back pocket, Drew’s immediate thought is _fuck_. This is going to be a bad night. 

The two men are clearly arguing about something, but it’s low enough that Drew can’t hear, and he’s not about to approach them to listen in. He hopes desperately that they’re not arguing about how to rob the store.

Then, Action Movie Villain says something that causes Grunge Wannabe to gesticulate wildly, flipping the guy off with a hiss of _“connard!”_ Or maybe Drew misheard, and the guy’s name is Connor. Yeah, that’s probably it.

Connor moves on to examine the display of beef jerky and Grunge is looking at the day-old pastry section, but it feels suspiciously like they’ve fanned out, like they’re casing the place, glancing shiftily around every few moments. Drew is five seconds from typing 911 into his phone and holding his thumb over the call button when the door bursts open again, and two more people tumble in: a women and a man, also in ripped, dirty clothing, and _fuck,_ are those _bullet holes_ in that dude’s jacket, the one soaked in a dark substance that Drew doesn’t want to think about?

The woman—white, thirty-something, looks like she could murder him with her pinky—says something in a language that definitely isn’t English, and Connor and Grunge each snipe something back. Drew tries his hardest to listen in without making it obvious that he’s listening in, and glances down just as Grunge makes another profane gesture in Connor’s direction.

 _“Calmati, Habibi,”_ says the man with curly hair and the maybe-bloodstained-jacket to Grunge, and then, “Booker, cut it out,” in English to Connor.

There’s more hushed argument in what Drew thinks might be a _different_ unfamiliar language—and this time, the scary woman says, “Hey!” sharply—and then they’re interrupted yet again by a young black woman entering, with a heaved sigh of “We’re all gassed up and ready. Everyone got their snacks?”

“Not quite,” says Blood Spatter, this time in lightly accented English. “Booker, as I was saying, just let me drive if you think Andy’s so bad at it.”

“You?” snarks Connor—Booker? “The last time I let you drive, you drove us to _Bratislava_.” Drew takes a moment to wonder where that is. Kentucky? Missouri, maybe? They’ve got some real funny place names there.

“So?” says Blood Spatter, apparently unperturbed.

The man’s eyes almost pop out. “ _So?_ We were going to _Vienna!”_ There’s definitely a Vienna in Missouri; he drove through it once.

“Eh, that is barely two _marhalah_ away from Vienna.”

“Sure, except it was the _wrong country_ ”—oh, so maybe they’re talking about Europe—“and in the interim the wall went up and we got stuck behind Soviet borders for a MONTH.”

Soviet borders? Drew isn’t particularly up on world affairs, but he’s pretty sure that was like, from the 80s, wasn’t it? None of them look old enough for that, in fact—

“Hi,” says the younger woman brightly, leaning against the counter, and he’s distracted by how pretty she is, the angles of her face and the swirl of her braids. “I was wondering if you had any earplugs.”

She smiles disarmingly, tilts her head as if to say _this bunch, huh?_ and Drew finds himself grinning back, mentally trying to run through the catalogue, remember if they do have any earplugs anywhere.

“I, uh. I don’t think so,” he says.

The woman looks disappointed, but just shrugs. “No biggie. Thanks anyways.”

“Hey, uh—” says Drew, before he can think the better of it. “Do you need any first aid supplies?”

The woman raises an eyebrow and he flushes, gestures vaguely at her midriff where there’s _definitely_ dried blood ringing perfectly circular holes in her shirt.

“Oh,” she says. “Nah, but thanks for checking.” There’s an awkward beat. “Costume party,” she adds, gesturing at herself, like it’s an afterthought.

(There’s been no such party anywhere in the county, or he would have heard about it. In their neck of the woods, it would be a stretch even at Halloween, and it’s currently March.)

He’s considering saying something more, or maybe just shooting his shot—stranger things have happened, right?—when five armfuls of candy and snacks get dumped on the counter.

The older woman sends an icy glare his way, and Drew immediately starts ringing up the purchases, as fast as he can, barely noticing as half of them leave again.

It’s the Booker guy who pays, dropping a bill that looks like play-money on the counter (it says “100€”), before the pretty woman elbows him and swaps it out for a hundred dollar bill, smiling apologetically. 

“Keep the change,” she says, as they sweep up the bags and glide out the door.

Keep the change? This is a _7-Eleven,_ not a restaurant, and he blinks for a second, stupefied, before running to the door to protest, to tell them that’s not how it works, and also that he’s _not_ supposed to accept any bill denomination above twenty, but there’s a screeching noise, and their car is already disappearing down the road and into the night.

He stands, alone in the empty convenience store, the overhead lights too bright and too harsh as he tries to make sense of what just happened. The hundred dollar bill sits limply in his hand, and he returns to the register to make the correct change and set everything in order.

Drew looks around, wondering, for just a second, if he imagined the entire experience. Everything looks exactly the same. They’ve gone without so much as the slightest indication that they—with their larger-than-life bickering and supposed costumes and strange stories—were ever there, and Drew is suddenly struck by the vague feeling that he just fulfilled a role as an extra in, like, a heist movie. Strange, indeed.

But this is the 7-Eleven off I-40, and sometimes the night shift is just like that.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments/kudos always appreciated :)  
> ***  
> -connard: Nicky has just called Booker an asshole/bastard in French, as one does.  
> -calmati: google translate tells me this means “calm down” in Italian, but what do either of us know?  
> -Habibi: we all know this one, right? “My love” in Arabic.  
> -marhalah: an Islamic measure of distance from antiquity, equivalent to roughly 44km, and considered about a village-length. Joe is sort-of correct; the quickest route from Vienna to Bratislava is about 80 km (but the shortest is 67 km).


End file.
